“This morning we were reminded via an office-wide email that we must comply with the official timekeeping rules,” writes an anonymous federal employee in Colorado. That means recording the correct times time sheets, not being absent during core hours without submitting a leave slip, not being off campus except for lunch hour or approved leave — you know, everything short of requiring hall passes to use the restrooms. (Really, would you expect anything less from the United States government?)

Later that a day, a print-out appeared on the bulletin board for a training called “dealing with difficult people.”

This follow-up note was posted soon after.

Adds our submitter: “As far as I know, no one has actually been fired or threatened with firing for not complying.” (Again, this is the federal government we’re talking about.)

related: four approaches to ice-cube maintenance
extra credit: “the audacity of government” [thisamericanlife.org]

(A Passiveaggressivenotes.com public disservice announcement)

1. From Portland, Oregon…

2. From Williamsburg, Virginia…

3. From Miami, Florida…

related: Come get some
extra credit: Herpes: it’s got New York by the balls [nymag.com]

Terri in D.C. found this sign-bedecked scooter outside her apartment hilarious for three reasons. First off, “the fact that one of those little squirrely-looking scooter guys got out his most aggressive art supply and wrote ‘fuck off and die’ to a stranger.”

Second, she says: “I live between two churches, a library, an elementary school, and a high school. Classy place to curse at passersby!” And the best part, says Terri? “The neighborhood I live in in D.C. is named Mount Pleasant.”

related: Nice try

Christine in San Rafael, California says Sol Food is “literally the best thing about San Rafael.” One reason, she says? The restaurant “keeps this gem of a note right where it belongs — on display in the glass cabinet outside the front door, where most restaurants would keep a menu.”

Seeing as the note has been up for about a year and half so far, it seems Angelo’s threat hasn’t caused much concern. In fact, Christine says, “the place is so popular that it always has a line out the door, which (bonus!) allows me to read it over and over again.”

(See the lime-green exterior for yourself here and here.)

related: Wrath mat

At this college dorm in Seattle, our anonymous submitter says each floor ordinarily has one male and one female bathroom. However, because this particular floor happens to have an overwhelming number of female residents, both bathrooms were deemed female-only…much to some guy‘s chagrin.

related: Losing Lisa

“My roommate thinks I took her dry erase board when I was 40 miles away the week it was taken,” says an anonymous college student in Tampa, Florida. “She has been leaving me notes like this ALL YEAR.”

God help our poor submitter, but I’m nominating this crazy rainbow of a note for the passive-aggressive hall of fame. (Prize: a year’s worth of anger-management therapy?)

related: Which one of these is not like the other?

Originally unearthed from outside the hallowed Conde Nast cafeteria in July 2001, this digital-age relic provides a quaint look back at those halcyon days among the New York media elite — back when Gawker was still just a glint in Nick Denton’s eye, young Anna Wintour acolytes were still stuck in the induction phase of the Atkins diet, and print media still seemed to maybe, sort-of matter!

It’s hard to say which seems more charming about this exchange: the amazingly un-snarky response of the cafeteria staff? Or the fact that someone would deign to eat mayonnaise at 4 Times Square?

related: like a rotten sponge

Julie spotted this amazing note on New York’s Lower East Side…

(Dude, how ominous are those ellipses?)

related: Movin’ out (Anthony’s song)